WanderingAmylessly 2.0

Henry and his fabulously carved pumpkins (Mom created the Jack 'O, Dad did the spectacular spider) wish everyone a Happy Halloween!!

BREAKING NEWS -- The Iowa state Board of Regents reversed a 40-year-old policy mandating that qualified university police officers in Iowa will now be routinely armed. ...because we ALL know that guns must be the answer to all our college campus problems. Let's start counting down to the first day someone accidentally takes a bullet and the tragic victim's parents file a lawsuit.

Only halfway through the season, the best dancer on Dancing with the Stars just got voted off -- thanks to the voting of a bunch of morons all over America who chose Cameron Matheson (who?? yes, exactly) and Jane Seymour (prissy British bitch at least 75 years old) instead of someone with real dancing talent and character and spark. Of course, half of America voted for George W. Bush, so we have proof there are a lot of morons around. Sabrina Bryan and her professional partner Mark Ballas deserved to win it all. Instead, they held each other and cried while their fellow contestants gathered around them, trying to shield them from the prying lens of the cameras. The crowd booed. Even the judges were outraged. The one bright spot in all this miserable excuse for prime time programming is...I think the Sabrina and Mark have fallen in love in the process. I hope they can get each other through the disappointment. I am officially never watching this show again.

As we were getting ready for work and school this morning, my 4-year-old was jabbering away about nothing much intelligible. Then all of a sudden, he stopped, looked right at me and said: "I'm Henry. And I approved this message." I'd vote for him before I'd vote for Mitt.

Halloween Candy Quiz You are a Chocolate Bar Like the chocolate bar you are naughty but oh so good Find out which Halloween Candy you are at Quizopolis.com

We took some time this weekend to play in the leaves in the park. Aren't my guys adorable? Happy Autumn!

I thought I was watching one of the top 10 most horrible moments in the history of pop culture. I thought I was watching Marie Osmond die, live on national television. Luckily, the Dancing With the Stars contestant was just having a post-Samba, California-wildfire-induced asthma attack and passed out. But that was one freaky unsettling - and quite extended - commercial break. I thought this was just a dancing show, where some wanna-bes and some has-beens learn to ballroom while trying to boost up or resurrect their careers. However, I'm finding that there's quite a bit of off-stage (or, in last night's case, right there live in technicolor) drama that rivals the plot twists and turns of any fictional show. For instance: -- Jane Seymour's mom died a couple weeks ago, so she had to drag her partner to England, and now her husband evaded the cops and is in their California home trying to save it from the wildfires. -- There's quite the weird factor going on between pro...

As the presidential race nears, are you having a rough time trying to sort the real contenders from the really ridiculous? Wondering who's a potential for greatness and who's a poseur? Most of all, do you wish you could answer a dozen questions and have the choices all sorted out for you -- in an instant, be told with whom you are most closely aligned on the issues most important to you? Tah Dah. Click here . This is one of several surveys floating around on the Net that try to help you make what may turn out to be one of the most important decisions you'll ever encounter. The future of our country, and perhaps our planet, rests on who gets elected in 2008. But...no pressure, or anything. My top choice, according to SpeakOut.com, is Hillary, followed closely by Chris Dodd. Bringing up the rear, thank you, is the Creationism nutcase from Kansas, Sam Brownback (who just announced he's pulling out of the race, probably the smartest move the goofball has ever made). As an a...

This is my new song of inspiration. Or maybe it's song of perspiration. It's my spin instructor Nick's favorite song. By, as he says, "the absolute very best singer in the whole world...ever." Ringo Starr. Nick often sings much of the song, loudly and with feeling, while the rest of us are struggling to suck up any bit of available oxygen. This man also screams "you gotta love it" and "you can't work hard enough in an hour to get tired." So I should really despise this song. But Ringo speaks truth -- it don't come easy. So I'll keep pedaling and singing and trying to forget my knees crack and my back aches. And I'll attempt to refrain from hurling my water bottle at Nick. (I'd like to say to Nick, "If you can sing, you're not working hard enough.") It Don't Come Easy By Richard Starkey ONE, TWO, ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR! IT DON'T COME EASY, YOU KNOW IT DON'T COME EASY. IT DON'T COME EASY, YOU KNO...

Our son is learning a lesson. A life lesson. A hard-knock lesson about how we don't always get what we want. Especially when all we've done for the past 73 minutes is whine and complain and cry and stomp and yell and call our parents inappropriate names and refuse to eat our broccoli and stick our fork out pretending to shoot Mommy with it. What is it that he is not getting, yet so desperately wanting? Chocolate. Damn. Don't we all. Thing is, if he'd just done what we asked and been polite while doing it, we were planning on giving him a piece of nutty, gooey confection that Mommy picked up from a new chocolatier in a nearby 'burb. The demon-child-fit-from-the-pit-of-Hades effectively nixed that plan. So for the past -- what is it now -- 78 minutes, we have heard this... Wwaaaaaahhhhhh. I really want chocolate. Pleaaaaasseee. Pleassse. Oh I really want it. Pleeaaaasssee. I really want chocolate. That's all I want, I'll be good. I promise. Pleaaassee. Waaaaaa...

Well, it's nice to know that the man who was truly supposed to be our 43rd president didn't let the injustice get him down. No, instead, he did a little something like HELP SAVE THE WORLD. Unlike the nincompoop we ended up with who is doing his jolly best to fu** it up beyond all repair. Congratulations Al Gore on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. He won. Hands down. Not a hanging chad in sight. Who knows. Maybe he DID invent the Internet. Here's what he said after receiving the Nobel: I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the world's pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis -- a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of human...

Today is National Coming Out Day and the 20th anniversary of the 1987 March on Washington and unfurling of the first AIDS quilt. How far we've come. How much farther we have to go. To those who have made the journey, thanks...for being an inspiration, for being brave, for being you.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The singer and former husband of Whitney Houston spent a night in the hospital after suffering a mild heart attack, his attorney said Wednesday. According to his publicist, Bobby Brown, who is 38, had the heart attack because of... stress and poor diet . And it couldn't have anything to do with the fact he's an, oh, I don't know, COKEHEAD? Perhaps he's stressed out because he's washed up, careerwise, and can't afford his crack fix. Much less, nutritious food. A bit of fortuitous (or not so much, if you're Bobby) foreshadowing perhaps -- The first album put out by R&B group New Edition in 1986, after Brown was voted out because of "behavioral problems," was actually titled "Heart Break." Funny, and sad, how life imitates art.

Well, we all knew it. But here it is in black and white -- the results of my "what's your high school stereotype" quiz. To find out your own results, go here . What's Your High School Stereotype? created with QuizFarm.com You scored as Geek Geek 56% Loner 44% Drama nerd 38% Goth 31% Stoner 25% Prep/Jock/Cheerleader 19% Punk/Rebel 13% Ghetto gangsta 6%

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) -- For nearly a year, two Missouri boys have been preparing to walk into a courtroom and face the man accused of kidnapping and abusing them. Now, an apparent surprise deal will spare them the ordeal. Michael Devlin, the former pizzeria manager accused of kidnapping Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby, will plead guilty next week to kidnapping and sexual abuse charges. Finally someone got some sense. I couldn't believe anyone, not even a slimy, sneaky defense attorney, would subject these poor boys to cross examination in a courtroom, further traumatizing and mentally raping them. I'm glad I was right. Not that these boys' emotional scars will ever disappear. But at least this sick SOB will be locked away for years and the kids can continue to get the therapy they need and the love from friends and family that they so deserve. Devlin won't be a popular guy in prison. Men who prey on children never are. Somehow, I'm not feeling much sympathy for hi...

I have the honor of saying my family and I have eaten at the "home of the biggest and best tenderloin in Iowa." Unfortunately, this establishment has earned another distinction -- for biggest and most numerous roaches in a restaurant. Joensy's Restaurant on Main Street in Solon just got shut down by the health department after a customer complaint in late September that there were "cockroaches crawling all over." A surprise inspection led to four minor violations and five critical violations, including: • An excessively filthy kitchen and food storage area, • A two-inch thick pile of grease behind the fryers, and (drumroll, please) • Live roaches crawling on walls, shelves, floors, a preparation table in the kitchen, in coffee filters and packages of disposable cups Oh good gracious. Forget what eating a slab of pork bigger than my head could do to your arteries. This is a much better reason to swear off eating out. Makes me wonder what goes on behind the kitche...

We try so hard. We limit Henry's TV-watching time to about an hour a week, and only educational-ish, preschool-oriented materials. We emphasize how hurtful hitting and name-calling can be. We try not to even utter the word "gun" in our house. Then he goes to school, and it all goes to hell. Do you know what a Power Ranger is? My 3-year-old does. He has started picking out his clothes based on which Power Ranger he wants to be that day -- the red one, the blue one, the green one. He picks up his golf club or anything similarly shaped, makes a "ka-pow" noise and tells me that "this could be a gun, couldn't it Mommy?" He pulls back his arm then propels it forward, hurling an invisible object at me at the breakfast table, warning, "Hey Mommy, fireball comin' atcha." To my knowledge, he has never watched this cartoon. He picked up this lingo and behavior by watching his little preschool buddies on the playground. All that cautious parentin...